The Espoo hives are at it again. Another swarm mid-week and Peter had to don his spacesuit and collect them all from the neighbour's hedge. It seems likely that the new queens have hatched and either left the hive or pushed out the old queen. Several empty queen cups though.

At least the swarm was at ground level this time so there was no need to resort to ropes and ladders! Here they are neatly wrapped around a thuja conifer.

It was an opportunity to inspect the hives again and Peter combined two of them, he also redistributed some of the brood to balance the hives. It seems that we have laying queens in all three of the Espoo hives now.